Examining Key Concepts in Research On Teachers' Use of Mathematics

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Examining Key Concepts in Research on Teachers' Use of Mathematics

Curricula
Janine T. Remillard
REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 2005 75: 211
DOI: 10.3102/00346543075002211
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What is This?
Review of Educational Research
Summer 2005, Vol. 75, No. 2, pp. 211–246
Examining Key Concepts in Research on

Teachers’ Use of Mathematics Curricula
Janine T. Remillard
University of Pennsylvania
Studies of teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials are particularly

timely given the current availability of reform-inspired curriculum materials
and the increasingly widespread practice of mandating the use of a single
curriculum to regulate mathematics teaching. A review of the research on
mathematics curriculum use over the last 25 years reveals significant varia-
tion in findings and in theoretical foundations. The aim of this review is to
examine the ways that central constructs of this body of research—such as
curriculum use, teaching, and curriculum materials—are conceptualized and
to consider the impact of various conceptualizations on knowledge in the
field. Drawing on the literature, the author offers a framework for charac-
terizing and studying teachers’ interactions with curriculum materials.
KEYWORDS: curriculum materials, curriculum use, mathematics, teaching,

textbooks.
At present, mathematics education finds itself at the intersection of two distinct
trends in relation to curriculum and curriculum programs. The first trend is the
availability of newly designed curriculum materials accompanied by research on
their implementation (e.g., Riordan & Noyce, 2001; Senk & Thompson, 2003;
National Research Council, 2004). Developed by mathematics educators with
funding from the National Science Foundation, these curriculum materials were
designed to support the curriculum standards published by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in 1989 (Curriculum and Evaluation Standards
for School Mathematics; hereinafter, Standards). Like the NCTM Standards, these
curricula emphasize mathematical thinking and reasoning, conceptual under-
standing, and problem solving in realistic contexts. Consequently, they require the
teacher to play a substantially different role in the mathematics classroom than has
been typical among teachers in the United States. The second trend is the tendency
for school districts to regulate mathematics teaching practices by mandating the
use of a single curriculum. Such efforts toward regulation have been initiated
largely in response to the failure of schools to raise student achievement levels,
particularly for students of color and from low-income communities, and have
been intensified by increased accountability measures taken at all levels of the
education system.
As these two trends converge, they result in considerable emphasis on the wide-
spread adoption of new curriculum materials as the primary strategy for improv-
ing mathematics education. In most cases, however, the curriculum materials being
211
Remillard
adopted are foreign in form and content to most teachers because they are designed
to promote reform in school mathematics.
Many educators and researchers find the emphasis on published curricula as
means to promote improvement in teaching reminiscent of the curriculum reforms
that took place during the late 1950s and early 1960s. During that period, content
experts (primarily mathematicians and scientists) sought to improve instruction by
designing innovative curricula for teachers to use. These reform efforts failed to
take hold in the United States for a number of reasons. However, the failure of
reformers to appreciate the central role of the teacher in classroom practices or to
anticipate the power of teachers to misinterpret, subvert, and even ignore unfamil-
iar curricula is often cited as the primary explanation for their demise (Berman &
McLaughlin, 1978; Sarason, 1982; Stake & Easley, 1978).
The similarities between the current reforms in mathematics education and
those of the “New Math”1 era provoke pertinent questions about whether present-
day reformers and curriculum developers have learned from the mistakes of the
past. A number of scholars over the last 25 years have studied how teachers use
curriculum materials and the role that textbooks and curriculum materials have
played in mathematics classrooms. Although these studies offer insights into the
influences underlying curriculum use, as a set, they provide little clarity on how
teachers use curricula or on the teacher–curriculum relationship. The same studies
suggest that understanding curriculum use is not a straightforward proposition.
Instead, the teacher–curriculum relationship is intertwined with other teaching
practices, is dependent on the particular teacher and curriculum, and is situated in
a specified context.
Findings from these studies, however, have not been consolidated to produce
reliable, theoretically grounded knowledge on teachers’ interactions with curricu-
lum materials that might guide future research or the design or implementation
of curricula. The absence of such a synthesis may be due, in part, to the remark-
able variation in findings on how teachers use both mainstream and innovative
curricula.2 Some studies, for example, demonstrate that teachers do not follow
curriculum guides closely, whereas others suggest close adherence. Studies of
teachers using innovative curricula offer instances of teachers rejecting and
subverting recommendations in their guides as well as instances of teachers whole-
heartedly embracing them.
The analysis presented in this article emerged from a review of the research on
teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials. “Curriculum use” refers to how
individual teachers interact with, draw on, refer to, and are influenced by material
resources designed to guide instruction. This definition and the discussion that
follows rest on the assumption that curriculum use involves an interaction between
the teacher and the materials.
My primary assertion—that the current body of literature rests on underdevel-
oped theoretical ground—grew out of the finding that fundamental constructs such
as “curriculum” and “curriculum use” have not been well conceptualized and are
framed differently across studies. Thus my aim is to clarify what is understood
about this complex interaction and to indicate where more work is needed. I focus
my analysis and discussion on underlying conceptual issues that I argue must be
addressed to improve knowledge of the teacher–curriculum relationship. As a
result, I do not offer an extensive review of several related bodies of literature.
212
Examining Key Concepts in Research on Teachers’ Use of Mathematics Curricula
Indeed, a growing number of studies offer insights on how teachers use innovative
or Standards-based curricula and the cognitive and contextual factors that influ-
ence their use. In addition, several studies have examined the ways these resources
influence teachers and teaching. The field would benefit from reviews of these bod-
ies of work. Furthermore, these literatures have influenced the focus and analysis
in this article. However, my analysis in this article is foundational in nature and
lays the groundwork for such syntheses as well as for further research.
First, I examine the literature on curriculum use, focusing on the different ways
that curriculum use is conceptualized. In so doing, I identify the constructions of
curriculum materials, teachers, and the teaching–curriculum relationship implicit
in these conceptualizations, as well as their underlying theoretical influences.
I assert that contrasting conceptions of curriculum use taken up in this literature
compromise what we can learn about teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum
materials across studies. I then consider what research on teaching and curriculum
can contribute to how curriculum use might be conceptualized. Beginning with the
section on teaching, I discuss conceptions of teaching—as a process of design and
as multifaceted—that have figured significantly in studies of curriculum use. I also
discuss findings from studies that identify individual teacher characteristics that
influence curriculum use. I then turn to discussion of curriculum materials and
describe ways that curriculum resources have been framed and analyzed in stud-
ies of curriculum use. In the final sections of the article, I draw these two compo-
nents of the teacher–curriculum relationship together in a framework that
represents the dimensions of this relationship, and I highlight areas where more
empirical and conceptual work is needed.
Distinguishing Between the Intended and Enacted Curricula
Throughout this article, I use the terms “curriculum materials,” “curriculum,”
and occasionally “textbook” to refer to printed, often published resources designed
for use by teachers and students during instruction. Over the years, these resources
have varied in focus, style, philosophy, and degree of comprehensiveness and have
taken on various roles in the minds of educators and policymakers. I discuss these
trends in greater detail later. Here, I acknowledge that the term “curriculum” has
multiple meanings. It is used to refer to overarching frameworks that specify what
should be taught or to guides or other resources that teachers use when designing
instruction and deciding what will be enacted in the classroom. For clarity, I use
the term only to refer to the resources and guides used by teachers.
Curriculum theorists distinguish among meanings by delineating categories to
describe each type of curriculum. “Formal curriculum” (Gehrke, Knapp, & Sirot-
nik, 1992), for example, refer to the goals and activities outlined by school poli-
cies or designed in textbooks. “Intended curriculum” refers to teachers’ aims,
whereas “enacted” or “experienced” curriculum is what actually takes place in the
classroom (Gehrke et al.). The enacted curriculum has been of interest to
researchers who study teaching because it acknowledges the active role of teach-
ers in designing curriculum (Connelly & Clandinin, 1986; Cornbleth, 1988;
Posner, 1988; Snyder, Bolin, & Zumwalt, 1992). Studying the relationship
between written curriculum materials and the enacted curriculum necessarily
involves understanding teachers’ processes of constructing the enacted curriculum,
including the role that resources, such as curriculum materials, play in the process.
213
Remillard
This view of curriculum assumes that the teacher is an active designer of curricu-
lum rather than merely a transmitter or implementer. I use the term “enacted cur-
riculum” to refer to this view of curriculum.
The Significance of Mathematics
In this review, I focus on the field of mathematics education. Although there is
much to be learned by looking at curriculum use within and across different content
areas, mathematics has several unique features that make it particularly significant
in a study of curriculum use.
First, mathematics is a subject that has long been associated with textbooks and
curriculum materials. Other school subjects, such as literacy-based subjects, have
enjoyed brief periods where teachers were encouraged to draw on literature or trade
books to shape their curriculum, but mathematics has a long history of being driven
by the textbook. The reasons for this trend include, among others, societal views
of the nature of the content and how it is learned, and the level of comfort that many
teachers have with the subject. Sosniak and Stodolsky (2000) found that the same
elementary teachers who tended to enrich the textbook’s suggestions in reading
and language arts tended to stick rigidly to the exercises offered in mathematics
texts. Consequently, efforts to initiate change in mathematics teaching rely heav-
ily on revised textbooks or curriculum materials (Ball & Cohen, 1996). The most
recent example of such efforts for curriculum reform is the newest wave of
Standards-based curriculum materials developed with funding from the National
Science Foundation. The availability and increasing use of these materials provide
another reason for studying teachers’ curriculum use within mathematics.
Second, current reform efforts in mathematics education (NCTM, 1989, 2000)
make mathematics an important context for improving knowledge of curriculum use.
Because these reforms seek to accomplish substantial change in mathematics cur-
riculum and pedagogy, and because textbooks and curriculum materials have figured
significantly in mathematics teaching and in reform efforts, the field of mathematics
offers a fruitful opportunity to examine teacher–curriculum relationships.
Methods of Selection and Analysis
Work on this review began with the gathering and reading of empirical research
on teachers’ uses of mathematics textbooks and curriculum materials, including
mainstream texts, innovative curricula, and Standards-based curricula that totaled
over 70 studies and covered 25 years. I targeted only studies that attended to how
teachers interacted with, used, and were influenced by prepared curriculum
resources at the classroom level, excluding a number of large-scale analyses of pro-
gram implementation efforts that addressed policy and politics at the system level.
Peer-reviewed journals served as the primary sources of studies. I surveyed the
contents of major journals in the fields of mathematics education, general educa-
tion, and research on teaching, including Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, American Educational
Research Journal, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Teach-
ing and Teacher Education, and Elementary School Journal. However, much of
the recent research on Standards-based curriculum materials has yet to be pub-
lished in peer-reviewed journals. Therefore, I also used ERIC to locate related dis-
sertations and conference presentations in order to include research on teachers’
214
use of newly published materials. In addition, I read a number of conceptual pieces
and commentaries on mathematics curriculum materials and teachers’ use of them
found in book chapters and journals such as Phi Delta Kappan. As a result of the
focus on teachers in this review, I did not include studies that examined students’
experiences with curriculum. Last, I read several studies of curriculum materials
in academic subject areas other than mathematics—specifically, science, reading,
and English. However, with the exception of one key study (Brown, 2002), I have
not included those studies in this review. I chose to include Brown’s work in this
review because it makes a substantial theoretical and conceptual contribution to
the research on curriculum use.
Using matrices, I grouped studies by publication date and, within each decade, by
the types of curriculum used by teachers in the study (mainstream, innovative, or
Standards-based). For each study, I recorded key features of the study (e.g., focus,
research question, number of teachers), methods used (e.g., data collected, analyti-
cal methods, theoretical framework), and findings. The diversity of findings across
the studies led me to a comparative analysis of methods and constructs used to exam-
ine curriculum use. This analysis revealed considerable variation in the meanings
assigned to the concept of curriculum use, together with limited explicit discussion
of the theoretical and conceptual assumptions underlying methodological decisions.
I subsequently examined each study and recorded implicit or explicit assumptions
about the meaning of curriculum use, curriculum materials, the teacher’s role and the
nature of teaching, and the teaching–curriculum relationship. Through this process I
identified four ways that curriculum use was conceptualized and examined in the
research. Although the four conceptions overlapped to some extent and were not
always mutually exclusive, each could be associated with a particular theoretical or
epistemological perspective on human activity, material use, or meaning making.
The intent of this review is to examine the conceptual underpinnings of research
on use of mathematics curriculum materials in order to frame and guide future
research. Because of the conceptual nature of this article, I have elected to provide
illustrative examples of empirical research when appropriate rather than supply an
exhaustive review of all related literature.
Multiple Meanings of Curriculum Use
Over time, studies of teachers’ use of curriculum materials have changed con-
siderably as ideas about the nature of teaching and the materials themselves have
evolved. In fact, the question of how teachers interact with and use curriculum
materials has not always been considered relevant to understanding curriculum.
Historical studies of school curricula, for instance, relied heavily on textbooks of
the period to reconstruct the contents of classroom practice (Love & Pimm, 1996;
Walker, 1976). This approach, which viewed curriculum as fixed and the teacher
as a conduit for curriculum, rather than as a user or designer, was strikingly evi-
dent in the “teacher-proof” curriculum reform efforts of the late 1950s and 1960s.
In highlighting ways that teachers adapted or resisted unfamiliar curriculum pro-
grams, researchers such as Sarason Berman and McLaughlin (1978) challenged
conventional assumptions that teachers merely followed their textbooks and that
texts alone represented classroom instruction.
Even within a framework that views teachers as active users of curriculum
materials and shapers of the enacted curriculum, researchers have taken a vari-
215
Remillard
ety of stances on the nature of the relationship between curriculum and teaching.
That is, researchers conceptualize curriculum use differently, and these concep-
tualizations are grounded in different assumptions about curriculum, teaching,
and reader–text interactions. Numerous studies, for example, assume that cur-
ricula are fixed, embodying discernible and complete images of practice. A sec-
ond group of studies takes classroom practice, rather than the text, as the starting
point for analysis and views curriculum guides as possible influencing forces in
the construction of practice. These two perspectives are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, it is plausible to hold that fidelity with a curriculum guide is possible
while examining the ways that a teacher uses the guide to construct her class-
room practice.
A third set of studies focuses on the teacher and examines the meanings made
from the text. This perspective frames the teacher as active interpreter of curricu-
lar offerings. Researchers in this group, along with many in the previous group, do
not assume that fidelity between texts and teaching is possible. In recent years, a
fourth category of research has emerged that overlaps with the third. Researchers
in this final group look mainly at the relationships that teachers forge with cur-
riculum resources, the factors influencing that relationship, and the effect that the
relationship has on the teacher and the enacted curriculum.
To some extent, these different conceptualizations reflect more general trends
in research. Many early studies, for example, focused on fidelity, whereas many
more recent studies reflect a more nuanced view of the curriculum. However, there
are exceptions. Below, I discuss each perspective on curriculum use and its under-
lying assumptions and provide examples of corresponding research. Table 1
contains a summary of the assumptions and theoretical perspectives associated
with each perspective.
It is necessary to emphasize that not all research on curriculum use fits neatly
into one of the aforementioned categories; I encountered several studies that strad-
dled the boundaries of at least two classifications. This phenomenon occurs in part
because the categories are overlapping; and distinctions between them are due, in
some cases, to different emphases of the research. Some studies are difficult to clas-
sify because the categories themselves are analytical tools developed for the pur-
pose of comparing research approaches. My aim in proposing the following four
perspectives is not to classify the research but to illuminate the varied and some-
times conflicting assumptions underlying research on curriculum use and to con-
sider the implications of this variation.
Curriculum Use as Following or Subverting the Text
Many studies of curriculum material use take the text as the starting point and
then consider the degree to which teachers follow or subvert it. These studies hold
to a somewhat positivist stance on text and assume that close fidelity between the
written and enacted curriculum might be achieved under ideal conditions. In effect,
isomorphism between written curriculum materials and the enacted curriculum is
possible. Therefore, in many cases, these researchers concern themselves with how
curriculum writers and others might achieve greater clarity and closer guidance for
the teacher. These concerns are not surprising, given the ubiquity of textbooks in
classrooms and the tendency for administrators and policymakers to see them as
potential vehicles for change.
216
TABLE 1
Key assumptions and theoretical perspectives influencing conceptions of curriculum use
Conceptions of
curriculum use Following or subverting Drawing on Interpreting Participating with
Conceptions of Fixed representation of One of many available Representation of tasks Artifacts or tools;
curriculum materials enacted curriculum resources and concepts products of sociocultural
evolution
Conceptions of the Enactor of planned Active designer of the Meaning maker; draws Collaborator with curriculum
teacher’s role curriculum enacted curriculum on beliefs and materials to design
experience to make enacted curriculum
meaning
View of teacher– Fidelity is possible Teacher has agency Fidelity is not possible Participatory relationship
curriculum and a desirable over curriculum influenced by both teacher
relationship goal and curriculum
Theoretical or Positivism Positivism or Interpretivism; reader- Sociocultural analysis
epistemological interpretivism response literary theory
influences
Focus of research: Agency of the text as Agency of teachers: Nature of interpretations The participatory relationship:
Illustrative research influencing factor: To What influences the and resulting classroom How do teachers engage with
questions what extent and under choices that teachers practices: How do teachers and use curriculum
what circumstances do make? How are their interpret their curriculum resources? What teacher and

teachers use the choices played out in resources? How do these curricular factors influence
curriculum with fidelity? classrooms? inter-pretations play out in this relationship?
How can fidelity be mathematics teaching?
increased?
217
Remillard
This stance is illustrated in both the findings and the recommendations contained
in these studies. Stephens (1983) analyzed teachers’ use of innovative curriculum
materials grounded in nontraditional conceptions of mathematics, focusing on how
teachers presented the nature of mathematical knowledge. Stephens found that teach-
ers transformed the intended curriculum, imposing a rigid and narrow portrait of
mathematics. Most teachers’ instructional patterns focused on group management
rather than mathematics. He ascribed the incongruence between the epistemological
assumptions underlying program goals and how teachers tended to carry them out to
the authors’ failure to be aware of, or to challenge, the traditions inherent in schools.
Similarly, Donovan described teachers subverting the authority of exploration-based
materials by relegating exploratory activities to an aide and then giving the aims of
those materials no emphasis in assessment.
Komoski (1977) found significant mismatches between the contents of teach-
ers’ guides and classroom practice, and looked to school officials, rather than text
authors, to guide teachers in their use of texts. He claimed that what is “ultimately
practiced in the classroom will end up quite different from the curriculum
described by the curriculum office” (p. 46) unless schools are committed to help-
ing teachers to use newly selected textbooks. In other words, following the text and
making the curriculum that is experienced in the classroom as close as possible to
the written curriculum can be achieved through careful attention and guidance.
Freeman and Porter (1989) also found few cases where teachers relied solely on
their mathematics textbooks. Of four case studies, only one teacher was “textbook
dependent.” The other teachers focused on basic skills or school district objectives and
used the textbook selectively to meet their goals. The authors claimed that the con-
viction that textbooks determine the curriculum was grounded in “a narrow view of
teacher decision making” (p. 404). In addition, they suggested that greater fidelity
might be accomplished through less ambiguity about issues such as the amount of time
allotted to each topic and how students ought to be grouped for instruction. The authors
also suggested that for textbooks to have greater influence on classroom content,
teachers needed to be given stronger incentives or sanctions for following or ignoring
their texts, as well as specific guidance regarding how the texts were to be used.
Several studies of teachers using Standards-based curriculum materials also
take the curriculum as a given and examine the extent to which teachers “follow”
or “implement” it. Manouchehri and Goodman (1998), for example, studied 66
teachers in 12 school districts over a period of 2 years and found substantial dif-
ferences in how teachers used the programs. They attributed the differences to
teachers’ mathematics knowledge, their understanding of the pedagogy called for
in the curricula, their experiences, and their teaching environments. They also cited
shortcomings in the guidance for teachers provided by the curricula, saying that
the curricula “did not provide the teachers with detailed methods of how to address
the content development” (p. 36). Like other studies that view use as following or
subverting, these findings suggest that, with improvements in the materials or con-
text, greater fidelity to the written curriculum is achievable.
Curriculum Use as Drawing on the Text
By looking at the classroom before the text, some researchers have described
curriculum use as ways in which teachers draw upon and incorporate texts into
their instruction. These researchers place emphasis on the agency of the teacher
218
and view texts as one of the many resources that teachers use in constructing the
enacted curriculum. The basis of this view is that “curriculum is something expe-
rienced in situations” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1986, p. 6) and that curriculum mate-
rials are resources that teachers use in the process of enacting these experiences.
From this perspective, curriculum materials are helpful tools for teachers; but
unlike cultural tools or artifacts (Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1998), they do not have the
power to shape human activity. Some researchers who take this perspective accept
fidelity as a possibility, while others do not. In either case, they seek to understand
what influences the choices that teachers make and how these choices are played
out in the classroom. From this perspective, curriculum materials represent one of
a large number of possible influences on teaching that these researchers study.
Researchers involved in the Content Determinants Study (Floden, Porter,
Schmidt, Freeman, & Schwille, 1981; Freeman & Porter, 1989; Kuhs & Freeman,
1979) took this perspective in their efforts to uncover the range of factors that ulti-
mately determine mathematics content in elementary classrooms. In addition to
examining the influence of textbooks in determining the content covered, these
researchers looked at testing, parents, district policy, and teachers’ personal inter-
ests, commitments, and expertise.
Likewise, McCutcheon’s (1981) ethnographic study of teacher planning looked
at, among other factors, how textbooks influenced planning decisions. By follow-
ing topics found in texts, teachers allowed a number of pedagogical and logistical
concerns to shape how they would teach. These concerns varied from classroom
control and available materials to students’ prior experiences. Knowledge,
attitudes, and perceptions of the context also weighed heavily in these teachers’
reasoning. McCutcheon claimed that teachers tended to transform program rec-
ommendations into lessons that they could engineer in the classroom.
Although the initial focus of Sosniak and Stodolsky’s (1993) research was on
how elementary teachers used textbooks in four subject, their findings also fit with
a view of teaching as drawing on curriculum. They observed inconsistent patterns
of textbook use across teachers and school subjects and subsequently argued that
rather than thinking of their textbooks as “blueprints” or “driving forces,” teach-
ers actually viewed them as “props in the service of managing larger agendas”
(p. 271). These findings suggest a need for understanding teachers’ larger curric-
ular agendas and the function of curriculum materials within them.
Smith’s (2000) year-long study of a middle school teacher using a reform-oriented
mathematics program while participating in professional development activities also
provides an example of research undertaken from a “drawing on” perspective. Smith
observed this teacher’s experiences as she navigated through a new curriculum,
unfamiliar professional learning opportunities, and her own strong commitment
to ensuring student success. By concentrating on how the teachers managed the
dilemmas faced during the year and the ways that a range of opportunities and
resources contributed to their teaching and learning, Smith found that the reform-
based curriculum was a source of both new and potentially conflicting ideas about
learning.
Curriculum Use as Interpretation of Text
A third stance that researchers have taken when studying teaching and curricu-
lum materials is to frame the teacher as interpreter of the written curriculum. This
219
Remillard
outlook holds to an interpretive view of text and assumes that fidelity between
classroom action and written words in a teacher’s guide is impossible, that teach-
ers bring their own beliefs and experiences to their encounters with curriculum to
create their own meanings, and that by using curriculum materials teachers inter-
pret the intentions of the authors. This position has its roots in reader-response
literary theory, which embraces the “phenomenological assumption that it is
impossible to separate perceiver from perceived, subject from object” (Mailloux,
1982, p. 20).
In her book on teachers’ encounters with curriculum materials, Ben-Peretz
(1990) argues that teachers draw on personal knowledge and experience to
“assign meaning to the curriculum materials they use daily in their classrooms”
(p. 71). She explores the frames that teachers use to interpret and analyze cur-
riculum materials and suggests that when teachers use curriculum materials in
flexible and defensible ways, they are able to unlock much of the “curriculum
potential” embedded in the materials. Research from this point of view investi-
gates the nature of teachers’ interpretations, the factors that influence them, and
the resulting classroom practices.
Researchers who view curriculum use as a process of interpretation tend to
apply this view to a range of media and initiatives intended to influence teaching,
including education policy. In studies of the relationships among state-level policy,
district practices, and classroom practices, researchers with the Educational Policy
and Practice Study (EPPS)3 maintained that policy and its multiple instantiations,
such as textbooks and tests, are open to interpretation. Beginning in 1988, EPPS
used case-study methods to consider how elementary teachers in California learned
about, understood, and acted on state-level mathematics policy in the late 1980s.
The state’s initial efforts to communicate its message of reform by altering math-
ematics instruction placed heavy emphasis on approved textbooks. Hence, how
teachers interpreted and used their new textbooks was central to this work
(e.g., Ball, 1990; Cohen, 1990; Heaton, 1992; Putnam, 1992; Weimers-Jennings,
1990; S. M. Wilson, 1990, 2003).
A particularly striking finding from this research with respect to the interpreta-
tion of policy and curriculum materials was the conviction with which all of the
participating teachers believed that their teaching reflected the ideas of the reform
as a result of their faithful use of a particular textbook or curriculum program.
However, their interpretations of the goals of the particular reform initiative and
their uses of their texts varied tremendously. Variations included subtle and not-
so-subtle adaptations of the plans suggested in the text, as well as diverging inter-
pretations of what it means to engage students in problem solving or to discuss their
solution strategies.
Stake and Easley (1978) also took an interpretive stance in their case studies of
the state of math and science education in the 1970s. In their observations, Stake
and Easley did not find one instance of mathematics or science being taught
through inquiry, which was the curriculum developers’ intent. Instead, the case
studies depicted teachers making adaptations to the written teacher’s guides that
fit traditional notions about the tasks of teaching and the nature of the subject
matter. The teachers who were studied seemed intent on “covering the text,” by
marching the students rapidly through the “inquiry” process and presenting the
subject matter as facts that experts found to be true.
220
This stance has been influential in a number of researchers’ investigations of
Standards-based curricula. Collopy (2003) studied two teachers using the same
curriculum for the elementary grades and found significant differences in their
uses. The most extreme case of this kind of variation was in how the teachers
used the illustrative dialogues provided in the curriculum. These scripted con-
versations, presented like the dialogue in a play, illustrated possible discussions
that a class might have about a focal concept or phenomenon. Interestingly, one
teacher read them before the class to anticipate ideas that might come up during
a class discussion; in contrast, the other teacher used them as scripts and had
students read the various parts aloud. Collopy attributed these dissimilar inter-
pretations to the teachers’ contrasting views of curriculum and the degree
to which they had firmly established pedagogical repertoires and curriculum
structures.
Chavez (2003) also focused on teachers’ interpretations of curricula in his study
of teachers using several different middle school curricula. His study included
a survey of 53 teachers and case study analyses of three teachers, two who were
using a Standards-based curriculum and one who was using a commercially
published, traditional text. He, too, found variation across practices of teachers
using the same Standards-based curricula. He asserted, “It is possible to ‘adopt’ a
textbook and use it frequently without really espousing the epistemological
assumptions that are attached to the textbook, and thus not change teachers’ prac-
tices in ways that would better match the goals of a particular curriculum” (p. 160).
Curriculum Use as Participation With the Text
Another, less common perspective taken by researchers studying teachers and
curriculum materials focuses on the teacher–text relationship, or the activity of
using the text. This perspective treats curriculum material use as collaboration with
the materials. Central to this perspective is the assumption that teachers and
curriculum materials are engaged in a dynamic interrelationship that involves
participation on the parts of both the teacher and the text. As mentioned earlier,
there are significant overlaps between this view and the view that focuses on use
as interpretation. The core difference is the focus of the analyses. Although
researchers in either category may view curriculum use as a process of interpreta-
tion through interaction with the text, the researchers in this group seek to study
and explain the nature of the participatory relationship. In other words, the distin-
guishing characteristic of this perspective is its focus on the activity of using or
participating with the curriculum resource and on the dynamic relationship
between the teacher and curriculum.
Although it is not necessarily identified by the researcher, this perspective on
curriculum use stems from Vygotskian notions of tool use and mediation, wherein
all human activity involves mediated action or the use of tools by human agents to
interact with one another and the world (Cole, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch,
1991, 1998). These tools, as “products of sociocultural evolution” (Wertsch, 1998),
both shape and are shaped by human action through their affordances and
constraints. The idea that both the curriculum and its users change through this
interactive process is reminiscent of McLaughlin’s (1976) earlier observations of
the mutual adaptation of policy. In the Rand change agent study, McLaughlin and
her colleagues found that implementation of innovation was most effective when
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teachers and administrators engaged in a process of adapting the project designs
to their particular circumstances. This process included adaptation of the local
setting and learning on the part of the participants. Accordingly, one characteris-
tic of much of the research that examines use as participation with the text is atten-
tion to the effect on the teacher. These studies not only look at how teachers engage
with, use, shape, adapt, and interpret curriculum materials but also consider how
teachers change or learn from their use of these resources (e.g., Davenport, 2000;
Remillard, 2000, Van Zoest & Bohl, 2002).
The view that curriculum material use involves a dynamic interchange between
teacher and curriculum, agent and tool, is reflected in Lloyd’s (1999) study of two
high school teachers using a Standards-based curriculum. The study investigated
“how and why two teachers encountered particular successes and difficulties as
each implemented a set of novel curriculum materials for the first time” (p. 229).
The author examined the teachers’ conception of the curriculum and of key ideas
central to it, including exploration and cooperation, and the teachers’ resulting
mathematics teaching. She argued that “curriculum implementation consists of a
dynamic relation between teachers and particular curricular features” (p. 244) but
also suggested that this relationship can be strained by tensions between the struc-
ture outlined in the curriculum guide and the teachers’ need to construct curricu-
lum that is responsive to students.
Remillard’s (1996, 1999, 2000) study of two teachers using a textbook that rep-
resented a commercial publisher’s response to the NCTM Standards (1989) also
examines teachers’ participation with curriculum. The study illustrates how two
fourth-grade teachers interacted with the same text in different ways to construct
contrasting opportunities for student learning. The analysis highlights the ways the
teachers read the textbook and explores the factors that contributed to different
approaches to reading. Not only did the two teachers read entirely separate parts
of the textbook (exercises for students as opposed to supplementary activities), but
they also read for different purposes (potential activities and assignments as
opposed to big ideas to guide planning). These contrasting uses of the textbook
produced different opportunities for learning for students.
Sherin and Drake’s (2004) analyses of 10 elementary school teachers using a
reform-based curriculum designed by mathematics education researchers is
another case of research that examines teachers’ participation with curriculum.
By looking closely at “the key processes involved in teachers’ use of curriculum
materials” (p. 4) and ways that teachers engage in these processes, Sherin and
Drake sought to understand “the chain of events whereby a set of curriculum mate-
rials leads to specific instances of classroom instruction” (p. 6). The chief processes
that they studied were reading, evaluating, and adapting. They considered when
teachers engage in these processes and to what ends. Their finding—that each
teacher tended to follow a particular pattern of use and that these patterns or
curriculum strategies differed across teachers—highlights the importance of under-
standing teachers’ approaches to curriculum use.
Brown’s (2002) study of middle school teachers using an inquiry-based sci-
ence project provides yet another example of research that looks at how teachers
“appropriate and mobilize instructional resources” (p. 1). Taking the position that
using curriculum resources is necessarily a process of design, Brown sought to
characterize and explain the variety of different practices in relation to the
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curriculum observed across the three teachers. He found that at different times and
in different situations, teachers “offloaded” responsibility for the design process
onto the curriculum and used a recommended activity as outlined by the authors,
“adapted” curriculum recommendations from their original offerings, and “impro-
vised” by relying fully on their own design initiatives and minimally on the
curriculum. In an effort to explain the variation that he observed in curriculum use
within and across teachers, Brown examined the individual resources that teach-
ers brought to their exchanges with the curriculum, as well as cognitive and phys-
ical affordances of the curriculum. In his Design Capacity for Enactment
framework, Brown identified teachers’ curricular practices as resulting from the
dynamic relationship between the features of the curriculum resources and the
teacher resources.
Implications for Studies of Curriculum Use
As noted earlier, my aim in highlighting the range of ways that researchers
conceptualize and study curriculum use is to consider implications for how this
research contributes to understanding in the field. In one sense, the variation in
perspective and focus permits scholars to reveal distinct dimensions or angles of
a complex phenomenon. That is, we gain different (though equally important)
insights about teaching and curriculum materials depending on whether we regard
teaching as the primary unit of analysis or focus on teachers’ interactions with
a particular curricular resource.
On the other hand, as the previous analysis indicates, much of the research rests
on varied theoretical assumptions—about curriculum and its representation, teach-
ing and its embodiment, the nature of reading and interpretation of text, and human
activity itself—that are not identified explicitly by the researcher. It is my con-
tention, then, that the contribution of the research can be assessed only after these
fundamental assumptions are revealed and questioned. Thus the field of research
on teachers’ use of curriculum materials has the opportunity—and arguably the
necessity—to take up critical theoretical issues that are at the very heart of the
questions that have driven the work thus far. Unless this opportunity is acted on,
progress will be limited.
In the following two sections, I draw on both empirical and conceptual analy-
ses of teaching and curriculum materials to propose conceptualizations of each that
hold up to studies of curriculum use. My purpose is not to provide an extensive
review of the literature but to clarify these constructs sufficiently to develop a
framework for future research. As the following discussion reveals, more litera-
ture exists on the nature of teaching than on curriculum. Although the work of
teaching has been the subject of a great deal of research and theory, curriculum
guides or resources have received minimal attention.
Conceptions of Teaching with Respect to Curriculum
Research findings on teachers using curriculum and on teaching in general high-
light several characteristics of the work of teaching that have relevance to the
framework on teachers’ curriculum use. These include the active nature of teach-
ers’ work as curriculum designers, the multidimensional nature of curriculum
design, and the significance of individual teachers’ characteristics and resources in
this process.
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Teaching as Curriculum Design
The distinction that most scholars of teaching and curriculum draw between the
written and enacted curriculum suggests that teachers are not mere conduits or
implementers of curriculum but active agents who, through their work with stu-
dents, construct the enacted curriculum (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992). Ben-Peretz
(1990) used the term “curriculum development” to signal the way that this work was
comparable to that of curriculum writers. She argued that there are really two phases
of curriculum development. The first phase is what curriculum writers do when they
conceptualize curricular plans and write them in resources for teachers. The second
phase is what teachers do as they alter, adapt, or translate textbook offerings to make
them appropriate for their students. In discussing the teacher’s role in curriculum
development, Ben-Peretz referred to the deliberate actions of teachers engaged in
“uncovering the potential of curriculum materials so that these can be reconstructed
for particular students and for specific classroom situations” (xiv).
Some scholars of teaching take this notion further, arguing that the curriculum
development or design work done by teachers goes far beyond selecting and
redesigning curriculum plans; it involves enacting those plans in the classroom with
students. In a study of the relationship between mathematics instruction and students’
thinking, Stein, Grover, and Henningsen (1996) observed distinctions between the
tasks that teachers initially presented to students and how they were implemented by
the teacher and students during the course of a lesson. These researchers found that
by adjusting particular features of reform-oriented tasks while students worked on
them, teachers decreased their cognitive demands, illustrating the responsive, inter-
active, and emergent nature of the enacted curriculum. Even teachers who followed
textbook suggestions as closely as possible made curriculum-development decisions
when enacting their plans with students in the classroom. Because teachers must
respond to the unscripted actions of students in an unscripted context, enacting
curriculum necessarily involves making in-flight decisions. Some have referred to
this activity as the improvisational work of teaching (Borko & Livingston, 1989;
Heaton, 2000; Remillard, 1999; Yinger, 1987, 1988).
The view of teachers as curriculum developers overlaps with recent work on
teaching and pedagogy as design (Brown, 2002; Brown & Edelson, 2001; New
London Group, 1996). Like developing or producing curriculum, the term “design”
captures the creative and in-process characteristics of teaching. “The notion of
design connects powerfully to the sort of creative intelligence the best practition-
ers need in order to be able, continually, to redesign their activities in the very act
of practice” (New London Group, 1996, p. 5). The concept of design emerges from
the growing field of design research and theory that conceptualizes design as
“a sequence of decisions made to balance goals and constraints” (Edelson, 2002,
p. 108) and design research as an iterative process of design and implementation
in which each cycle of implementation affords opportunities to study both the arti-
fact under design and the implementation process.
Although design research traditionally has focused on material artifacts, such
as curriculum materials and other tools, Brown and Edelson argue that teaching
itself is a design process in which “teachers actively shape the instructional
environment using available resources in order to achieve their goals” (p. 9).
Therefore, teachers’ processes of reading, interpreting, translating, and adapting
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curriculum resources as they shape and reshape instruction are practices of design.
Any model of teachers’ curriculum use must be able to capture and represent the
design work undertaken by teachers.
Teaching as Multidimensional
The distinction between designing curriculum plans and designing curriculum
as it is enacted, as illustrated by Stein et al. (1996), hints at the multidimensional
nature of teaching and curriculum design. In other words, teaching is more than
what teachers do in the classroom with students. Two studies of curriculum mate-
rials use by teachers of mathematics (Remillard, 1999; Sherin & Drake, 2004)
illustrate the different dimensions of teaching in relation to curriculum and have
produced models that have promise in framing future studies.
Remillard’s Arenas of Curriculum Development.

Through a study of two fourth-grade teachers’ first-time use of a commercially
published textbook released after the Standards, Remillard (1996, 1999) identified
three arenas of curriculum development activity that teachers engaged in as they
used the text in their mathematics teaching. The term “curriculum development”
was taken from Ben-Peretz’s (1990) view of the teachers’ role in interpreting and
adapting written curriculum materials. Each arena defines a particular realm of the
curriculum development process about which teachers explicitly or implicitly
make decisions (see Figure 1).
The design arena involves selecting and designing tasks and activities for
students. In examining the two teachers’ work in this arena, Remillard (1999)
focused on the their approaches to reading the text. The construction arena involves
enacting these tasks in the classroom and responding to students’ encounters with
them. Remillard used the term task adaptation, “the unrehearsed adapting and
Curriculum Mapping
Organization and content of the mathematics curriculum
Design Arena Construction Arena
S el e ct i n g a n d Improvising
d esig nin g Enacting
tasks in in response
mathematical to students
tasks the classroom
FIGURE 1. An overview of Remillard’s (1999, p. 322) three arenas of curriculum

development. Copyright 1999 by Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission.
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Remillard
adjusting of tasks in order to facilitate students’ work with them,” to refer to the
primary activity of the construction arena (p. 328). Regardless of how the teachers
used the textbook to select tasks, enacting them required both teachers to make
on-the-spot decisions about how to adapt them in response to classroom events. In
this arena, Remillard found that the teacher would first “read” students and the tasks
as students engaged in them, rather than the text, and then improvise adaptations.
The mapping arena involves making choices that determine the organization
and content of the mathematics curriculum over the year. Unlike the previous two
arenas, the mapping arena is not directly related to daily classroom events but
affects and is affected by them. The decisions that teachers made in this arena were
not always readily apparent.
Textbooks offer a curriculum map that organizes mathematical topics into
sections, each including specific concepts or skills. Teachers map the
curriculum when they decide how or whether to use these structures. . . .
Teachers also map the curriculum when they elect to go through each chap-
ter in sequence, taking one lesson each day. . . , or when they abandon the text
altogether and develop alternative maps. (p. 334)
In addition to illustrating the different ways that teachers might engage curricu-
lum materials within each arena, the three arenas highlight the multiple dimensions
of curriculum use. Such findings help to explain inconsistencies that appear in the
literature on textbook use that resulted from researchers focusing on different arenas.
Because of the limited role that the text played in the teachers’ efforts to adapt tasks
in the construction arena, Remillard identified this arena as an important point of
focus for future research (1996, 1999) and curriculum development (2000).
Sherin and Drake’s Models of Curriculum Use

Sherin and Drake’s (2004) analysis of 10 elementary school teachers’ initial uses
of a noncommercially published curriculum, designed by mathematics education
researchers, examines how teachers engage with the materials at different phases of
teaching: prior to, during, and after the lesson. In each phase, the researchers exam-
ined “three key processes in which teachers engage as they use curriculum materi-
als” (p. 5): reading, evaluating, and adapting. Sherin and Drake analyzed each
teacher’s approach to these processes, their chronology, and the interrelationships
among these processes. They refer to the patterns for each teacher as “curriculum
strategies,” noting that the patterns remained stable throughout the year.
In examining the process of reading the curriculum, the researchers considered
when the teachers read the materials and for what purpose. They identified three
general approaches: (a) reading for big ideas prior to instruction; (b) reading for
lesson details prior to instruction; and (c) reading for big ideas prior to and for
details during instruction. The three teachers who relied on the third approach
managed to attend to the overarching goals of the lessons as well as to their specific
elements.
Sherin and Drake defined evaluating as teachers’ attempts to judge aspects of the
materials, such as the mathematics and instructional strategies included. A
significant difference among the teachers’ evaluation processes was whom they had
in mind as the audience, the teacher, the students, or other constituents, such as par-
ents or administrators. The finding that 7 of the 10 teachers considered themselves
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Read Evaluate Adapt
Before Examines main activities in Considers own understanding Creates transitional
Instruction lesson. of conceptual connections activities.
Examines new vocabulary among activities in lesson.
introduced in lesson.
During Considers students’ Creates new explanations
Instruction understanding of mathematics and new terminology.
in lesson.
After Considers whether students
Instruction need more review.
Considers whether she
successfully managed
activities in lesson.
FIGURE 2. An example of one teacher’s curriculum strategy. From Sherin & Drake
(2004), Figure 2. Reproduced with permission of the authors.
as the audience indicates that a majority of teachers in this study attended to their
own understanding and use of the materials as well as to that of the students.
Noting the impossibility of a complete match between written and enacted
curriculum, the researchers focused their analysis of teachers’ adaptations on
“significant changes that teachers make in the intended curriculum such as changes
in the structure of a lesson, in the activities that comprise the lesson, or in the
purpose of the lesson” (p. 30). Most often, adapting occurred simultaneously with
evaluating, in the form of creating new tasks, examples, or materials and adding
them to the existing materials, replacing one part of a lesson with something else,
or omitting part of a lesson.
Because they found substantial consistency in each teacher’s approach to all
three processes, Sherin and Drake posit that, at least in the first year of use, a teacher
has a stable curriculum strategy. Figure 2 offers an example. By delineating each
teacher’s curriculum strategy, Sherin and Drake were able to identify patterns across
teachers that have implications for further research and practice. For example, they
found that teachers who evaluated with the teacher in mind before instruction and
with the students in mind during instruction tended to adapt by creating new com-
ponents to the curriculum. The researchers assess this tendency as “a proactive sense
of collaborating with the curriculum” (p. 24), and even go so far as to suggest that
teachers attending to their own understanding prior to instruction provided a foun-
dation from which to evaluate and adapt with students in mind. As a result, they
were less inclined to omit portions; rather they tended to create additional compo-
nents that they believed would foster students’ understanding.
An important contribution of Sherin and Drake’s framework is that it highlights
and examines details of teachers’ interactions with the particular curriculum. Their
findings reveal that using a novel curriculum is a complex and multifaceted process
of interaction with materials. Moreover, this study reinforces Remillard’s (1999)
claim that teachers approach these interactions in substantially different ways.
Individual Teacher Characteristics and Resources
Many studies of teaching and teachers’ uses of curriculum materials highlight
teachers’ varied approaches to designing curriculum and seek to explain these
differences in terms of individual teacher characteristics.4 The idea that teachers’
beliefs about (Thompson, 1992) and knowledge of (Fennema & Franke, 1992)
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Remillard
mathematics, teaching, and learning influence their teaching decisions is well
established in the literature. Furthermore, these cognitive characteristics have been
found to have considerable influence on teachers’ responses to calls for curricular
reform, because the content of the reforms often conflicts with widely held beliefs
about mathematics, teaching, and learning (Franke, Carpenter, & Fennema, 1998;
J. P. Smith, 1996). Some researchers have sought to clarify the role that such indi-
vidual characteristics play in curriculum use. The following discussion identifies
individual characteristics that have figured prominently in these studies.
Brown (2002) examined three middle school teachers’ interactions with an
inquiry-based science unit that was designed by education researchers in collabo-
ration with public school teachers. His analysis targeted the ways that teachers used
the particulars of the curriculum to design instruction. Doing so, he argued, is a
complex activity in which teachers “perceive and interpret existing resources, eval-
uate the constraints of the classroom setting, balance tradeoffs, and devise strate-
gies—all in the pursuit of instructional goals” (p. 27). In his discussion of the
teacher resources involved in teacher–curriculum interactions, Brown, like a
number of scholars, identified pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986),
subject matter knowledge, beliefs, and goals as influential factors in teaching and
teachers’ use of curriculum (e.g., Remillard, 1992; Romberg, 1997; Stephens,
1982; Thompson, 1984; M. Wilson & Goldenberg, 1998).
Brown (2002) also proposed the construct of pedagogical design capacity as a
way to characterize an individual teacher’s ability “to perceive and mobilize exist-
ing resources in order to craft instructional contexts” (p. 70). A fundamental term
in this definition is “mobilize.” Instructional capacity, Brown asserts, is not merely
a function of teacher knowledge—it is the ability to act with and on that knowledge.
Various researchers have identified additional factors that contribute to teachers’
interactions with and uses of curriculum. One such factor that appears to be signif-
icant is a teacher’s beliefs about or stance toward curriculum materials. Evidence
indicates that teachers view curriculum materials and textbooks as authoritative
(Remillard, 1991; Romberg, 1997; Stake & Easley, 1978), inflexible (Chavez,
2003), or as artifacts of tradition (Ball & Feiman-Nemser, 1988). Remillard and
Bryans (2004) found that teachers’ stances on what curriculum materials are and
what they represent as resources for teachers influenced the way they used
Standards-based materials more than the extent to which the materials matched the
teacher’s beliefs about mathematics.
Some scholars have indicated that a teacher’s professional identity is another
characteristic that contributes to curriculum use. Smith (1996) identified self-
efficacy as highly influential in teachers’ pedagogical decisions and suggested that
many of the practices called for by the NCTM Standards (1989, 2000) run counter
to traditional views of effective teaching. In this sense, teaching is deeply
connected to the formation of one’s identity, and changing one’s teaching involves
identity reformation (Spillane, 2000). Researchers have found that teachers’
interactions with novel curriculum materials are influenced by their own sense of
themselves as teachers (Drake & Sherin, in press), as users of curriculum (Lloyd,
1999; Romberg, 1997), and as authorities in the classroom (Frykholm & Pittman,
2002; M. Wilson & Lloyd, 2000).
In his study of middle school teachers using Standards-based mathematics cur-
ricula, Frykholm (2004) took account of several individual teacher characteristics
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all associated with discomfort that teachers experience when using unfamiliar
curricula. He identified four domains of discomfort commonly experienced by
teachers using Standards-based curriculum materials: cognitive, belief-driven,
pedagogical, and emotional. Frykholm argued that use of these materials is neces-
sarily influenced by one’s tolerance for discomfort in each domain.
Some studies have also indicated that teachers’ perceptions of the needs and
capacities of their students affect their use of curriculum. As Sherin and Drake
(2004) point out, teachers often read new curriculum materials with the students
as the audience and make determinations about how to use and adapt suggested
activities with students’ needs in mind. In some cases, teachers’ perceptions of
students’ deficits figure significantly in their negative responses to Standards-
based curricula (Collopy, 2003; M. Wilson & Lloyd, 2000).
When considered together, studies on the characteristics and resources that
influence curriculum use highlight several themes. First, teachers matter in the
curriculum-use equation. The individual resources and perspectives of teachers
help to explain, in part, the differences seen across teachers in curriculum use,
especially when they are working with the same curriculum. Second, patterns that
exist across studies reveal the types of characteristics that are particularly promi-
nent as influencing factors. Third, although knowledge and beliefs are the most
studied of individual characteristics, a number of additional factors have appeared
in the literature particular to teachers’ curriculum use. These factors, including
teachers’ orientation toward curriculum and professional identity, have the poten-
tial to expand understanding in the field of the teachers’ curriculum use.
Conceptions of Curriculum Materials
Much has been written about the work of teaching, but relatively few efforts
have been devoted to examining and conceptualizing curriculum materials. During
the period of curriculum reform that followed the launch of Sputnik, many devel-
opers assumed that curriculum materials could direct teaching and structure
students’ experiences (Dow, 1991). Efforts to regulate teaching through mecha-
nisms such as curriculum, referred to by Cohen (2000) as the “remote control”
approach to reform, are seen by researchers as largely unsuccessful.5 Nevertheless,
the failure of this approach seems to have prompted few analyses of what
curriculum materials represent in relation to teaching. The analyses that are avail-
able offer insights into the relationships between the materials themselves, the
ideas they represent (which are at once mathematical and pedagogical), and the
teaching they are designed to support.
In his exploration of the concept of text and textbook, Otte (1986) argued that
one must consider the text as both an “objectively given structure of information”
(the physical form that the text takes), and a “subjective scheme” (how it is under-
stood or perceived). Subjective schemes encompass tradition and culture and medi-
ate the reader’s interpretation of the objective structure. In the discussion that
follows, I examine mathematics texts first as subjective schemes and then in terms
of their objective structures.
Texts as Subjective Schemes
Scholars generally agree that curriculum guides are distinct from teaching itself
and cannot prescribe the enacted curriculum. This is the case on both the practical
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and conceptual levels. From a practical perspective, it is simply impossible for
curriculum developers to address all the needs of individual schools and class-
rooms. As a curriculum developer, Susan Jo Russell (1997) asserts:
No matter how well curriculum materials are tested and how many times they
are revised, each school brings its own resources and barriers; each classroom
brings its own needs, styles, experience, and interests. . . . And each day in the
classroom brings its own set of issues, catastrophes, and opportunities. . . .
At some point, we have to decide that the curriculum materials themselves
are good enough—ready for teachers to use and revise in their own class-
rooms. (p. 251)
Otte (1986) addressed this distinction on a conceptual level, noting that the text-
book is “produced by a human being for the purpose of communication” (p. 175).
The function of the textbook is to communicate a particular pedagogical represen-
tation of selected content. Using texts, he explains, involves a “transformation of
space into time,” from the ideas represented in the text to the real time of the class-
room. Otte explains that with this transformation, isomorphism between the text
and the lesson is impossible:
Something additional happens upon reading and interpreting texts, especially
texts in mathematical textbooks. Reading is not automatized like breathing,
walking, or seeing. Hence the problem of the interaction between text as a
subjective scheme and text as an objectively given structure of information
stands as a permanent problem not to be solved once and for all. This,
however, requires that the textbook is not conceived of as a written lesson
protocol. (p. 175)
Brown (2002) used the analogy of the relationship between sheet music and
music performed to illustrate what he describes as “the complex relationship
between tools and the practices they facilitate” (p. 14). As an example, Brown com-
pared Duke Ellington’s rendition of “Take the A Train” to one by Ella Fitzgerald
and made the following observations:
First, we have little difficulty identifying each rendition as being the same
song.
Second, we find that despite their essential similarities the songs sound distinctly
different (note that the same can often be said for two renditions by the same
artist). Third, we can examine, as music critics often do, the sources of this
variation—ranging from obvious differences such as instruments used to less
obvious ones such as cultural influences, contextual factors, and stylistic prefer-
ences. Finally, few would argue that although performers use pre-rendered
scores as foundations to support their practice, indeed a bulk of the creative work
is taking place during the performance. (pp. 14–15)
Rather than focusing on the relationship between the text and teaching, Kang and
Kilpatrick (1992) explored what the mathematics text represents in relation to math-
ematical knowledge. Drawing on didactic transposition theory (Chevallard, 1988),
they distinguish between knowledge as it is known and used and knowledge as it is
packaged or structured for the purposes of teaching others. Structuring knowledge
to be taught to others requires a didactic transposition that necessarily involves alter-
ing it. For example, knowledge that is indeed dynamic and “unsteady,” like the
230
messy work of proving a theorem, is often portrayed as static and tidy when pre-
sented as a proof in a book. Another example of didactic transpositions is the way
that knowledge is broken down and given a form considered amenable to learning.
The two previous examples of didactic transpositions illustrate the ways that
these transpositions have epistemological and social entailments as a result of their
sanctioning particular types and forms of knowledge. Consequently, the textbooks
and curriculum materials that result from such transpositions reflect social and
ideological views of knowledge and how it is learned. Similarly, Stray (1994)
suggests that the messages appearing in texts are “multiply-coded,” because “the
coded meanings of a field of knowledge (what is to be taught) are combined with
those of pedagogy (how anything is to be taught and learned)” (p. 1).
Another aspect of the subjective schemes of textbooks that offers a lens for
analysis is for whom they are written. Love and Pimm (1996) claim that mathe-
matics textbooks are primarily for students. Not only are they written for the
purpose of teaching, but they also contain exercises exclusively for students to
perform; some consist only of such exercises. This image applies to most com-
mercially marketed textbooks published prior to the release of the 1989 NCTM
Curriculum Standards, but is less applicable today. The Standards, along with
other reform documents, called for significant change in how mathematics was
taught as well as what was taught. As a result, curriculum materials became seen
as a resource for teachers as much as they were a source of activities for students.
Many of the curriculum writers who were funded to develop Standards-based
curricula sought to develop materials that helped teachers to imagine different
ways of structuring mathematics classrooms and interacting with students. Subse-
quently, a number of studies of curriculum use began to examine the extent to
which curriculum materials could be designed to be educative for teachers
(e.g., Collopy, 2003; Davenport, 2000; Lloyd & Wilson, 1998; Remillard, 2000).
Brown (2002) offered a conception of curriculum that has considerable promise
in studies of teachers’ interactions with materials. Drawing on sociocultural the-
ory (e.g., Cole & Engestrom, 1993; Pea, 1993; Vygotsky, 1978; Wartofsky, 1973),
he characterizes curriculum resources as “artifacts,” or tools that are part of the
material world made and used by humans to accomplish goal-directed activity.
Curriculum resources have material dimensions, but as constructions of culture
they also have social and cultural meaning. As cultural artifacts that mediate
human activity, curriculum resources have the potential to enable, extend, or
constrain human activity. From this perspective, the use of curriculum resources
can be viewed as the use of a cultural tool.
Texts as Objectively Given Structures
All studies on teacher–curriculum interactions explicitly or implicitly frame
what Otte (1986) labeled “objectively given structures,” described by Love and
Pimm (1996) as “what can be seen when looking at such materials” (p. 379).
However, a perusal of various studies on curriculum use reveals substantial varia-
tion in what counts as the text. For example, Bush (1986) studied preservice
secondary teachers’ decision making and claimed a strong dependence on text-
books. A careful analysis of the transcriptions provided, however, reveals that
following the text actually referred to determining and sequencing mathematical
topics, not teaching them. He quoted one typical response from a student teacher,
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Remillard
who tended to “pick out the topics they [the text] want to talk about, then I explain
it freehand on the board” (p. 25).
Other researchers count topics and skills taught and time allocated to them as
part of the text. In their study of textbook use, Freeman and Porter (1989), for
example, considered the use of exercises on the student pages but not other aspects
of the text. In contrast, Sosniak and Stodolsky (1993; Stodolsky, 1989) also
accounted for teachers’ use of the pedagogical suggestions provided in the
teacher’s guide and for the extended activities for students not included on
students’ pages. Finally, some researchers, most often those studying the use of
innovative and Standards-based curriculum materials, view the text as represent-
ing a particular stance or philosophy and examine the degree of match between the
epistemological or theoretical assumptions underlying curriculum and teachers’
practices (e.g., Chavez, 2003; Donovan, 1983; Preston & Lambdin, 1995;
Stephens, 1982). These researchers differentiate between going through the
motions of following a curriculum and truly embracing its message and intent.
Such variations in how the curriculum is framed across studies have obvious
implications for research methods and potential learning about the teacher–text
relationship. They signal a need for more work on framing and conceptualizing the
components of curriculum materials. The following examples represent initial
forays into this unexplored terrain.
One way to characterize the components of a curriculum is by what it offers its
users. The offerings that receive the most attention by curriculum selection
committees are usually the representation and structure of mathematics and
the activities for students. I identified these as the structure of the curriculum
(Remillard, 2002). Most frequently, structures are organized into daily lessons that
include student exercises and activities as well as auxiliary activities. Implicit in
these offerings are the authors’ views of mathematics and how it is learned, but
they are communicated through the teacher by directing her actions.
Curricula that seek to influence teaching also include suggestions for the teacher
or actions the teacher is expected to perform and information for the teacher to read
and use. These offer insights into the authors’ assumptions about teaching and
curriculum use and represent attempts to speak to the teacher. Traditionally,
curriculum materials have focused on speaking through the teacher. However, cur-
riculum writers seeking to design materials that are educative for teachers have
begun to explore ways to speak to teachers about such matters as mathematical
ideas, pedagogical strategies, and student responses (Remillard, 2000).
In his analysis of science curriculum, Brown (2002) offered a slightly different
way to categorize the components of curricular artifacts. He identified three classes
of artifacts within the curriculum: (a) physical objects and representations of
objects, (b) representations of tasks, and (c) representations of concepts. He used
the term “physical objects” to denote “the material nature of the curriculum mate-
rials themselves” (p. 52), which includes accompanying tools and materials. The
reference to representations of objects indicates that not all objects suggested for
use in the curriculum come with it; some are recommended only. Similarly, Brown
used the term “representations of tasks” because the curriculum provides “instruc-
tions, procedures, and scripts” (p. 54) that represent the tasks. The materials do not
include the actual tasks, because those can only be enacted by people. He noted
that some of the representations of tasks contained in curriculum resources are for
232
students to enact, such as problems to solve or experiments to perform, and that
others are for the teacher to enact, such as recommendations for how to structure
a lesson or introduce a concept. Finally, representations of concepts refer to the
depictions and organization of the content domain and the relationships within it
through a variety of means, including diagrams, models, analogies, descriptions,
and explanations.
Regardless of how the material features are classified, underlying and closely
related to them are less-noticed elements of curriculum materials. Love and Pimm
(1996) highlight the presence of the text as one example. As a presence, they
explain, “the text is complete, already finished” (p. 379), a problem with didacti-
cal transpositions. In this sense, it represents the past within a present (the class-
room) that is in the midst of unfolding. Although possibly unavoidable, the
completeness brings with it a sense of authority.
Another element of the presence of a text is its voice, a feature of curriculum
materials discussed by Herbel-Eisenmann, (2000), Love and Pimm (1996), and
Remillard (2002). Voice refers to how the authors or designers are represented and
how they communicate with the teacher and the students. In most curriculum mate-
rials, the authors are invisible, and little information is provided about their identity
or experiences. Herbel-Eisenmann used discourse analysis tools drawn from
Morgan (1996) to analyze the voice of a unit from a Standards-based middle
school curriculum, focusing on how the authoritative structures in the writing con-
structed the author, the reader, and mathematical reasoning. For example, she
noted the absence of first-person pronouns and suggested that it concealed the pres-
ence of human beings in the design of the text. In addition, the authors’ frequent
use of second-person pronouns in conjunction with objects in statements such as
“the graph shows you” obscures the authority of the authors and gives inanimate
objects power to perform animate activities.
Herbel-Eisenmann also noted that the most common use of the second-person
pronoun was “you verb,” as in “you find.” By using this construction, she
argued, the authors are telling the readers about themselves, “defining what they
[the authors] think the reader is doing.” And in doing so, the authors are “control-
ling the common knowledge” or “defining and drawing attention to it” (p. 57).
Herbel-Eisenmann acknowledges that some of these discourse patterns may be
unavoidable, given that authors are forced to assume or establish common knowl-
edge among readers. Other patterns, as in the curriculum that she analyzed, may
be the result of pressure from publishers. In any case, what is particularly impor-
tant about Herbel-Eisenmann’s analysis is that it reveals the ways that authors of
Standards-based curricula may find themselves undermining their own efforts to
foster a view of mathematical knowledge as constructed by the learner, a view that
locates a sense of authority for knowing and thinking within the learner.
Curriculum materials also have a highly visual dimension, which I refer to as
their look (Remillard, 2000). Many of the commercially designed texts, for exam-
ple, have a decidedly commercial look. They are printed on glossy pages, contain
color photographs of smiling children, and include pages that read like advertise-
ments for the materials. Most noncommercially developed materials have a look
that seems subtle in comparison. For whatever reason, probably cost, noncom-
mercially developed materials tend to be printed in black and white or with limited
use of color. They also make limited use of photographs and font varieties. Love
233
Remillard
and Pimm (1996) point out that curriculum materials contain visual representations
and images that have a variety of purposes, some that are related to the mathemat-
ical ideas or instructional activities and others that are superfluous. Although the
mathematical representations also fit into Brown’s (2002) class of representations
of concepts, both mathematical and nonmathematical representations contribute to
the look of the text.
It is evident from the preceding discussion that curriculum materials represent
much more than static collections of tasks and lesson plans. As Otte (1986) points
out, an analysis of curriculum must consider both the objectively given structures
and how the structures are perceived. Focusing first on curricula as subjective
schemes, we are reminded that when interacting with curricular resources, teach-
ers do not encounter the structures alone. Instead, their encounters occur within a
context that assigns to the curriculum a particular meaning. In other words, teach-
ers’ interactions with curricula may be shaped by their perceptions of the curricula
(Remillard & Bryans, 2004). Curriculum developers may seek to design materials
that will prompt new perceptions of curriculum materials as resources for teach-
ers. However, if texts as subjective schemes shape how teachers read and interpret
these new structures, limited change may be likely.
Focusing on the objectively given structures, we see that the resources
provided in any curriculum represent a complex set of plans, activities, scripts,
suggestions, information, explanation, and messages that have both textual and
visual entailments and are likely to speak to different readers in different ways.
We know little about how teachers engage these varied offerings. As Brown
(2002) asserts, much of what is in a curriculum resource is representational, in
that it provides not actual activities or concepts but representations of them.
Therefore, these representations can be taken up and brought to life in the class-
room in significantly different ways.
The analyses of both the objective features and the subjective schemes associ-
ated with curriculum materials provide multiple lenses through which researchers
might examine and understand teachers’ work with resources. Thus far, such
analyses have had a minimal role in examinations of curriculum use.
The Teacher–Curriculum Relationship
In the preceding analyses of research, the teacher–curriculum relationship
emerges as a significant construct in understanding teachers’ curriculum use. This
relationship is brought to the forefront by studies that view curriculum use as
participation with curriculum materials and examine how teachers actively engage
or collaborate with curricular resources. Many studies from varied perspectives
have pointed to the active and interactive nature of teachers’ work when shaping
the enacted curriculum, indicating that teaching is a responsive and improvisa-
tional activity that cannot be scripted. However, studies that have focused on how
teachers participate with curriculum materials have found that their reading of it is
actually a highly interactive and multifaceted activity, rather than a straightforward
process as may be assumed.
The models of teachers’ curriculum use offered by Brown (2002), Remillard
(1999), and Sherin and Drake (2004), for example, illustrate the various ways that
teachers draw on their own resources and capacities to read, make meaning of,
evaluate, adopt, adapt, and replace the offerings of the curriculum. Teachers make
234
explicit or tacit decisions about what to read, and they read for different kinds of
information.
Clearly, teachers’ work as they interact with curricular resources is critical to
understanding curriculum use and merits further examination. Brown (2002), for
example, argues that understanding how a teacher uses curriculum resources and
the resulting classroom practices requires an integrated analysis of the teacher’s
resources, the particular curriculum resources, and how they interact. This stance
suggests that features of the curriculum matter to curriculum use as much as char-
acteristics of the teacher. While it is common for studies of teachers’ curriculum
use to delve deeply into individual teachers’ resources and characteristics, it is less
common for researchers to examine use through analyses of the structures and
features of the curriculum. Standards-based mathematics curriculum materials, for
example, tend to be treated as similar for understandable reasons. However, com-
parisons of teachers’ participation with them could reveal significant differences
among these resources and shed light on how teachers interact with particular
features and characteristics. As a result, the teacher–curriculum relationship and
specific characteristics of the curriculum, along with teacher characteristics, are
prominent features in the framework introduced in the next section.
Framing Future Research
To discuss directions for future research that grow out the preceding examina-
tion of the literature, I offer a framework that highlights relevant dimensions of and
interactions within the teacher–curriculum relationship (Figure 3). This framework
Subjective
Teacher Context Curriculum

~Pedagogical content knowledge
~Representations of concepts
~Subject matter knowledge
~Material objects and
~Beliefs/goals/experience
representations
~Pedagogical design capacity
~Representations of tasks
~Perception of curriculum
~Structures
~Perceptions of students
~Voice
~Tolerance for discomfort Participatory ~Look
~Identity Relationship
Schemes
Planned
Curriculum
Enacted
Students Curriculum Context
FIGURE 3. Framework of components of teacher–curriculum relationship.

235
Remillard
includes key constructs that have emerged through the previous synthesis of empir-
ical research and represents an attempt to uncover their theoretical roots. It assumes
a perspective that curriculum use involves a participatory relationship between the
teacher and the curriculum, and it highlights this relationship as a needed focus of
further research. The framework also accommodates two other stances discussed
previously: use as interpretation of text and use as drawing on the text. The posi-
tions that curriculum use involves participation with the text and that it involves
interpretation of the text overlap with each other a great deal. The primary differ-
ence is focus. Much of the research that frames use as drawing on the text also
embraces an interpretive perspective and focuses on a wider range of teaching
activities and use of resources.
The framework, on the other hand, does not easily accommodate a stance on
curriculum use that focuses on fidelity. The preceding analyses of teaching,
curriculum materials, and materials use suggest that fidelity as a descriptor of cur-
riculum use may be a misleading construct. While examining how teachers under-
stand and use particular features of curriculum materials is certainly valuable, the
evidence suggests that a written curriculum cannot fully capture or represent teach-
ing. As discussed above, teachers play a fundamental role in reading and inter-
preting the offerings in curricular resources. That said, studies that treat the degree
of fidelity or closeness to the intended curriculum as a dependent or independent
variable continue to have a place in this body of research. Indeed, a report
published by the National Research Council (2004) evaluating the research on
curriculum effectiveness recommends that studies of the impact of curriculum on
achievement include analyses of the degree of implementation as an independent
variable. However, degree of implementation or fidelity must be carefully and
clearly delineated. As the previous analyses of curriculum materials as complex
and multifaceted resources implies, determining precisely how the desired enacted
curriculum should look for purposes of assessing fidelity would be a complicated
endeavor.
The conception of curriculum materials as artifacts or cultural tools proposed by
Brown (2002) goes a step further, in that it frames both materials and teachers as
active players in an interactive relationship. As readers, teachers draw on their per-
sonal resources to understand and bring meaning to the offerings provided in the cur-
riculum. Simultaneously, prepared curricula contain material and representational
resources laden with subjective meanings that mediate teachers’ reading of them.
This outlook helps to explain research findings in which teachers both construct their
own understandings of curriculum components and are influenced by them.
The four principal constructs of the framework are (a) the teacher, (b) the cur-
riculum, (c) the participatory relationship between them, and (d) the resulting
planned and enacted curricula. Its design is grounded in two assumptions central
to the previous account of teaching: that teaching involves curriculum design and
that it is multifaceted. Together, these stances imply that teachers are engaged in
design work throughout the multiple domains of teaching. Emphasizing the rela-
tionships among the participatory relationship, the planned curriculum, and the
enacted curriculum allows the framework to represent the cycles of design before,
during, and after classroom practice. Like Brown’s (2002) Design Capacity for
Enactment framework, this framework accentuates what I refer to as the partici-
patory relationship, the interaction between the teacher and the curricular resource.
236
It also shows that the interaction is shaped by what the teacher and the curriculum
bring to them. The following discussion is structured around the four principal
dimensions of this framework and their implications for future research.
The Teacher
The left-hand circle of the framework represents the resources, stances, and per-
spectives that the teacher brings to the participatory relationship with curriculum
resources. These include the individual characteristics discussed in the literature
reviewed earlier, such as knowledge, capacities, beliefs, perceptions, and experi-
ences. While we know a great deal about many of the teacher characteristics and
resources that influence teaching and curriculum use, such as beliefs and knowl-
edge, others merit further study. Still other characteristics are yet to be identified.
Characteristics that relate specifically to teachers’ interactions with curriculum,
such as the teacher’s perception of and stance toward curriculum materials and the
teacher’s professional identity as it relates to the use of curriculum resources, are
of particular relevance because they are examples of influential factors in
teacher–curriculum relationships that respond directly to the curriculum as a sub-
jective scheme. The field would benefit from continued research on individual
teacher characteristics and the ways that they contribute to, shape, or constrain
teacher–curriculum interactions. Such research could also help answer critical
questions about this relationship: To what extent and in what ways is the influence
of these characteristics consistent across different curriculum materials and teach-
ing contexts? How do these characteristics change through use of particular
materials or other mediating experiences?
The Curriculum
The right-hand circle represents the particular curriculum resource or text being
used. The outer ring denotes the curriculum as a subjective scheme—how the
curriculum, its particular features, and curricula in general are perceived by the
teacher and within the broader society. These schemes serve as a backdrop within
which the objectively given structures (Otte, 1986), represented in the inner ring,
are encountered. Because we know so little about the curricular features that figure
into the teacher–curriculum interaction, the items in this circle are more tentative
than those in the teacher circle.
As previously mentioned, analyses of curricula tend to emphasize structural
components, such as mathematical content and pedagogy. Brown’s (2002) triad—
representations of objects, tasks, and concepts—illustrates this approach. Descrip-
tions offered by Herbel-Eisenmann (2000), Love and Pimm (1996), Otte (1986),
and Remillard (2002) focus on features of materials not directly related to content
that are subtle and often unintended. These include voice and look as well as struc-
ture. This area merits continued exploration, particularly in the case of curriculum
materials that are substantially different from traditional curricula in structure,
look, and intent. Although it is important to continue to examine teachers’
responses to the new ways of organizing mathematics content and supporting
students’ learning that are provided in Standards-based curricula, it is equally
important that researchers consider the role of features not directly associated with
the content or pedagogy of the curriculum. To what extent and in what ways do
features such as voice and look matter in the teacher–curriculum interaction?
237
Participatory Relationship Between Teacher and Curriculum
The participatory relationship between the teacher and the curriculum consists
of interactions in which both the teacher and the curriculum are significant and
active participants. The notion that curriculum can be an active participant in these
interactions is based in sociocultural perspectives on cultural artifacts or tools as
previously discussed. Sherin and Drake (2004) and Remillard (1999) include ways
of reading, evaluating, and interpreting in their analyses of this relationship. Brown
(2002) identified ways of using curricula—offloading, adapting and improvising—
that also fit into this category.
It is important to acknowledge that what the teacher and curriculum bring to
this participatory relationship must be understood as embedded in particular local
and global contexts. However, the influence of the context is particularly appar-
ent when examining this interactive relationship. As is indicated in the framework
and has been found in a number of studies of curriculum use, the teaching and
school contexts influence the way that teachers engage with, read, and use math-
ematics curriculum materials (e.g., Keiser & Lambdin, 1996; Manouchehri &
Goodman, 1998).
A primary purpose of this article is to bring attention to this participatory rela-
tionship and suggest that it needs continued examination and explication. Further
research in this area can provide answers to questions such as these: When do
teachers engage in these and other activities with curriculum resources? What is
the relationship between particular curriculum features and the ways that teachers
engage them? How does the participatory relationship change as a result of
extended use of a particular curriculum?
The Planned and Enacted Curriculum

In the framework presented in Figure 3, I have differentiated between the planned
curriculum and the enacted curriculum to indicate that the curriculum enacted in the
classroom can, at best, be represented by the curriculum planned by the teacher. The
planned curriculum is the outgrowth of the participatory interactions between the
teacher and the curriculum. The bidirectional arrow signals the possibility for the
planned curriculum to, in turn, influence the participatory relationship, in that it
shapes what teachers seek, read, and draw on in the curriculum resource.
The enacted curriculum captures these plans as they unfold in a particular con-
text with particular students. This is a critical dimension of the curriculum design
process that takes into account context-specific demands as they emerge. In other
words, the enacted curriculum is co-constructed by teachers and students in a par-
ticular context. Several researchers have identified the improvisational and adap-
tive nature of this work (Borko & Livingston, 1989; Heaton, 2000; Remillard,
1999; Yinger, 1987), highlighting the tendency for the enacted curriculum to rep-
resent minor or substantial changes in curricular plans. Yet we have yet to deter-
mine whether a consistent relationship exists between the planned and enacted
curricula across a large sample of teachers. Do teachers tend to make predictable
adaptations in their plans when enacting them in the classroom? What curricular,
contextual, or teacher factors influence these adaptations? This framework also
raises questions about possible relationships among the participatory relationship,
the planned curriculum, and the enacted curriculum.
238
The Possibility of Teacher Learning Through Curriculum Use
Although the primary process captured by the framework in Figure 3 is the tran-
sition from the teacher–text relationship to the enacted curriculum, it is important
to note the ways in which this path is actually cyclical and dynamic, as is repre-
sented by the arrows from the enacted curriculum to other key dimensions. For
instance, some teachers do not consult their curriculum resources during instruc-
tion, whereas others do. Teachers may make adaptations to their curriculum plans
in the moment, which are further transformed as they enact them in the classroom
(Remillard, 1999).
The framework also captures the possibility that enacting curriculum will
prompt change in individual teacher characteristics (Remillard, 2000) as well as in
the participatory relationship between the teacher and the curriculum (Collopy,
2003; Drake & Sherin, 2002). These arrows account for the ways that curriculum
use can prompt teacher learning and change. Because few studies of teachers’
curriculum use have examined the participatory relationship over time, there is still
much to learn about whether use of unfamiliar curriculum materials might be
viewed as a form of teacher development.
Implications for Policy and Practice

The preceding discussion raises a number of questions about current knowledge
in the field of teachers’ uses of mathematics curriculum materials and points to
much-needed research to inform practice. At the same time, it also offers insights
and perspectives that can guide current policy and practice. I conclude with a
discussion of several practical implications of findings described in this review
and, in particular, of the model of curriculum use proposed in the previous section.
The understanding that the process of using a mathematics curriculum guide is
complex and dynamic and is mediated by teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and
dispositions suggests that the decision to adopt a single curriculum in a school or
district will not alone result in uniform mathematics instruction. Teachers require
substantial support in learning to use new curriculum materials. They need to learn
about the content, goals, approaches, and underlying assumptions of the curricu-
lum they are being asked to use. However, information about the curriculum is not
sufficient. For many teachers, the process of interacting or participating with a new
curriculum is neither explicit nor public. Teachers would benefit from opportuni-
ties to read and examine a new curriculum with colleagues, making their interpre-
tations and decisions explicit to themselves and others. A central goal of such an
activity would be for teachers to openly and actively engage in participating with
a curriculum guide.
As stated previously, the stance that curriculum use by teachers involves a
process of transforming the written curriculum, together with the finding that cur-
riculum resources themselves are multifaceted, troubles the notion of curricular
fidelity—that it is possible to realize a precise match between the curriculum as
written and as enacted in the classroom. At the same time, it would be inaccurate
and irresponsible to conclude that all interpretations of a written curriculum are
equally valid. Those who are involved in facilitating the use of curriculum materi-
als are in need of ways to characterize reasonable and unreasonable variations or
instantiations of a particular curriculum that are tied to features most central to its
239
Remillard
design. The primary responsibility for identifying ranges of acceptable variation
and clarifying the essential components of a curriculum belongs to curriculum
developers. However, examining a curriculum to identify the ideas and suggestions
that are core and those that are more superficial would be a productive activity for
a community of teachers to undertake in the form of ongoing inquiry and profes-
sional learning.
The assertion that the materials themselves matter in teachers’ interactions with
curriculum materials also has implications for curriculum developers. As described
above, curriculum materials have a number of characteristics beyond the specific
mathematical content and pedagogy represented in the text. These characteristics
include the look and voice of the text and its subjective scheme or how it is per-
ceived. It is critical that curriculum developers pay careful attention to the multi-
ple ways that their materials communicate with the teacher. They must consider
how they are addressing the teacher through the design of their materials, how they
expect the teacher to respond to their suggestions, and how they represent what it
means to use their resource. In other words, the designers of curriculum materials,
as well as those who adopt them, must carefully consider how they frame and sup-
port the teacher–curriculum relationship.
Notes
I am grateful to Thea Abu El-haj, Katherine Schultz, Ellen Skilton-Sylvester, and
Beth Herbel-Eisenmann for feedback received on earlier drafts and to colleagues at the
Center for the Study of Mathematics Curricula for ongoing intellectual support and
critique. I also wish to thank the blind reviewers for their insights and perspectives.
1 Specifically, the term New Math refers to the curriculum materials developed in the
1960s by the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG). It is often used to refer to all
reform-oriented mathematics materials produced during the curriculum reforms of the
late 1950s and early 1960s.
2
I use the term “mainstream” to refer to the textbooks that were most commonly used
in schools before the mid 1990s, when Standards-based materials began to appear on
the market. For the most part, these texts were published by commercial publishers,
such as Addison-Wesley or Holt, and tended to look alike. The term “innovative” refers
to textbooks and curriculum materials designed to offer alternatives to mainstream
texts. These were most frequently developed by researchers and were infrequently
published by commercial publishers. The term “Standards-based” refers to those
curriculum materials designed to reflect the vision of the NCTM Standards (1989,
2000). My use of the descriptor is not limited to those materials developed with the
support of National Science Foundation funding. Most innovative materials share com-
mon characteristics with Standards-based materials, but this is not always the case.
Standards-based materials might be labeled as a particular class of innovative materi-
als. When necessary, I use the term “traditional” to refer to materials that reflect a view
of mathematics teaching and learning that has become a tradition in the United States.
This view is characterized in the 1989 NCTM Standards and is identified as an
approach in need of rethinking. As Standards-based curricula become increasingly
available and the ideas promoted by the NCTM Standards gradually make their way
into U.S. classrooms, the term “mainstream” has become a problematic and unclear
descriptor and the term “traditional” seems to be a better choice.
240
3
This group began its work in 1988 on a study of the relationship between state-level
mathematics policy and classroom practice in California. Later, in 1992, as it expanded
its focus to include three states and policy in two subjects (mathematics and reading),
the group took the title EPPS.
4
Because the focus of this article is examining conceptual issues guiding research on
curriculum use, findings from these studies are not discussed here. Stein, Remillard, and
Smith (in press) discuss research on factors that influence teachers’ interactions with cur-
riculum materials, including teacher resources, curricular resources, and context.
5
It is worth noting, however, that recent district and school policies continue to rely
on this approach.
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Author
JANINE REMILLARD is an Associate Professor of Education in the Graduate School
of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is Co-Principal Investigator of
MetroMath: The Center for Mathematics in America’s Cities and is a research
associate with the Center for the Study of Mathematics Curriculum. Her research
interests include curriculum use, mathematics teaching and teacher learning in urban
contexts, and the relationships between mathematical practices in and outside
of school.
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Examining Key Concepts in Research On Teachers' Use of Mathematics

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Examining Key Concepts in Research on

Studies of teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials are particularly

KEYWORDS: curriculum materials, curriculum use, mathematics, teaching,

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Remillard’s Arenas of Curriculum Development.

Organization and content of the mathematics curriculum

Design Arena Construction Arena

FIGURE 1. An overview of Remillard’s (1999, p. 322) three arenas of curriculum

Sherin and Drake’s Models of Curriculum Use

Teacher Context Curriculum

FIGURE 3. Framework of components of teacher–curriculum relationship.

The Planned and Enacted Curriculum

Implications for Policy and Practice

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